


Designated Driver

by purewanderlust



Series: Love, Curiosity, Freckles, and Doubt [11]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2012-10-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 23:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purewanderlust/pseuds/purewanderlust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is drunk and grieving. Not the best possible combination.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Designated Driver

The fire is only a week behind them when Sam finally cracks, and when he does, there’s no one to blame but himself.

Dean’s been on his best behavior, to the point of being unsettling. He doesn’t mention Jess’ name, doesn’t make Sam talk, doesn’t try to get him to leave their motel room on the outskirts of Palo Alto. He doesn’t pick any fights, and when Sam does, Dean doesn’t defend himself against any of the venom his little brother spits at him. It’s nice at first; Sam’s in no condition to handle stupid sibling crap--or worse, the stuff that choked their relationship in that last few months before Sam left for college. But after a while, Dean starts to wear on him. His attitude is so un-Deanlike that Sam starts to feel like he lost his brother again the same night that he lost Jess. 

After the third time Sam lashes out at his brother that night--for nothing in particular--and Dean just takes it with that infuriating stoicism, Sam has had enough. He storms out the motel room door without a word, pretending not to feel a brief, mean flash of triumph over the one action that he knows Dean will respond to: leaving. But he’s really got nowhere to go, so he wanders down the road until he stumbles upon a bar, which doesn’t take too long in a college town. 

_It worked for Dad,_ Sam finds himself thinking viciously as he orders a whiskey and tells the bartender to leave the bottle. He drinks until the room starts to tilt sideways, and then drinks some more. By the time he’s finished the bottle, Sam isn’t sure he can make it to the door unassisted, let alone all the way back to the motel. 

Which, of course, is when Dean shows up, like some obnoxious mix between a homing pigeon and a sheepdog, trained to always find Sam. He strides through the door, apparently oblivious to the looks coming his way, and scans the crowd for his brother. He has his hands stuffed in his pockets and his collar turned up and he looks so good Sam could just kill him. 

The feeling passes quickly enough, leaving Sam feeling a little disgusted with himself. Dean slides onto the stool next to him and smirks, taking in Sam’s state. 

“Hey there, kiddo. Drunk enough to not fight me when I take you back to the room?” 

“You’re not my mom, dude.” Sam slurs and Dean makes an aborted movement, hurt flashing across his features for the briefest of seconds. A reaction, fuckin’ _finally._ Sam grins, or he thinks he does. “Hey! Dean! It _is_ you! Was startin’ to think you were a shifter or somethin’.” 

Dean sighs, and it’s such a put-upon older brother sound that Sam beams at him. 

“‘m glad you’re not a shifter, man,” He chirps happily. 

“Yeah, okay,” Dean answers, hauling him to his feet. “I’m glad you’re not a shifter too. Let’s go.”

“How d’you know ‘m not?” Sam protests, resisting his brother’s grip. Dean sighs again and starts dragging him towards the door while the bartender shoots them concerned looks. 

“Because nobody else in the whole damn world has as many mood swings as drunk-you,” Dean mutters, more to himself than to Sam. “And there’s a surveillance screen behind the bar, dumbass.” 

By the time he gets this little speech out (or at least it seems long enough to be a speech to Sam’s drunken brain), they’ve reached the Impala, parked carefully in the far corner of the lot. Sam pats Dean’s cheek clumsily as he’s bundled into the passenger seat, and Dean bats his hand away.

“Dude, knock it off.” He says it by rote, but there’s a note of tension in his voice that wasn’t there before. Sam feels like a scolded child, but that doesn’t stop the near-dormant flicker of guilty want he carries around from flaring to life. He keeps his mouth shut as Dean crosses in front of the car and gets into the driver’s seat, terrified of what might come out if he speaks. 

Predictably, Dean doesn’t say anything either, and the drive back to the motel is tense. Sam kind of wishes he hadn’t had so much to drink; suddenly all he can think about is what happened the last time one of them was drunk when they were together. He groans softly, pressing his face to the cool glass, and Dean shoots him an assessing look, probably wondering if Sam’s going to barf in his car. 

Sam, for his part, hardly notices, so caught up in his memories. Everything that happened between him and his brother has been stuffed into a lockbox in the back of his mind ever since he met Jess, but now it’s all rushing back at him in that specific way things do when you’ve had too much to drink. He remembers being sixteen and fatally in love with his brother; remembers the horrified betrayal in Dean’s expression the day he left for Stanford; Dean showing up at his dorm that Christmas, drunk and so angry.

“Ohhhhhh God,” he moans, and suddenly Dean is pulling the passenger side door open and wrenching him out, threatening death if he blows chunks in the car. Sam only realizes they’ve reached the motel when the ground tilts alarmingly and Dean hauls him in with a steadying arm around his waist.

“Goddamnit, it’s only a few more steps. C’mon, Sammy.”

Sam smiles dumbly at him as Dean props him against the wall and goes to unlock the door, movements practiced and efficient. “So ‘m still Sammy?”

Dean glances sideways at him. “Really? Are you that drunk?” He steers Sam into the room and shuts the door, turning the bolt with a flick of his wrist. 

“Not what I meant!” Sam wails. “I mean I’m still _your_ Sammy. Sammy to you, I mean.”

A pained look flits across Dean’s face before his defenses slam back into place and Sam is too wasted to even begin to parse that. Dean shoves him towards the bed furthest from the door, mouth twisted into an impressive scowl. “You’re drunk; go to bed.” 

By some miracle, Sam stumbles, but manages to keep his feet. “Not ‘til you tell me ‘m still your Sammy,” he says petulantly. He feels dangerously unsteady, but everything besides Dean is so far away, and when he reaches for his brother, Dean moves away too. 

“Go to bed, Sam,” he says tiredly, and Sam is abruptly furious. He lurches forward and grabs Dean’s shoulders, momentum carrying them back until his brother’s back slams against the wall. Dean grunts, a little pained and mostly surprised, and that’s probably the only reason he doesn’t fight back. 

“Gonna pretend it never happened, Dean?” Sam mumbles, swaying in dangerously close to his brother’s face, near enough to count his freckles. “Forever’s a long time for denial.”

Dean’s face is a perfect blank, but Sam can feel the rage coming off of him in waves. “You have ten seconds to get outta my face before I break your nose,” he says in a deceptively calm voice.

Sam kisses him instead.

It barely lasts two seconds, just mouths smashed together uncomfortably, but Sam’s stomach swoops and he hears a nasty voice in the back of his head: _did you actually think you’d ever be over him?_

He doesn’t have any time to process though, because Dean’s hands are on his shoulders, shoving him away. 

“God _dammnit_ , Sam!” He snarls, green eyes flashing angrily, like Jess’ used to on the rare occasions they’d fought. Tears flood Sam’s eyes, but whether it’s from thoughts of Jessica, or his brother pushing him away, he isn’t sure. All at once, he remembers being under Constance Welch’s cold hands, protesting that he’d never been unfaithful. Remembers her rotting face contorting into grotesque glee as she whispered _you will be._

Sam lets out a dry sob and stumbles backwards until his knees hit the edge of the bed and he drops to sit on the mattress. Dean’s stern expression flickers uncertainly, his anger warring with his automatic instinct to comfort his little brother. “Sam...” 

“I--I’m sorry, Dean.” Sam cuts him off, feeling acutely miserable. “I know you don’t want...and Jess is gone and I--I just--” 

“Shh, it’s okay Sammy,” Dean says, pitching his voice like he’s talking to an injured animal. “You just need to sleep it off.”

“Sorry I kissed you,” Sam mumbles, immediately drowsy at the mention of sleep. “It was just... Was just a stupid kid thing, right?”

Dean flinches sharply, expression stricken. Then Sam blinks, and his brother is wearing an unreadable expression, gripping his elbow. “C’mon, time for bed.” He says, and there’s nothing in his voice to suggest the upset that Sam thought he saw. 

“Christ, ‘m drunk,” he says out loud, and Dean snorts. 

“Such a fuckin’ lightweight, Sammy.” He pulls his brother’s jacket off and Sam flops back on the mattress and stares at the bare ceiling. It makes him feel cold all the way through, though, and as soon as Dean is done tugging his shoes off, Sam turns clumsily on his side and tugs the edge of the comforter over his shoulder. 

“Night Dean,” he slurs, face half-buried in the pillows.

“Night Sammy,” Dean whispers, and if there’s anything off about his tone, Sam’s asleep before he notices.


End file.
